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No Gold Glove for Kevin Kouzmanoff

Did Kevin Kouzmanoff deserve the Gold Glove award for best NL fielding third basemen of 2009? That’s the only question I really care about. As a Padres fan, I certainly root for the Padres and their players, but when it comes to things like player analysis, I try to be as objective as possible, setting aside my Padre fandom in a search (usually, a futile one) for the truth.

The basics

Anyway, let’s compare Kouzmanoff with Ryan Zimmerman, the Washington Nationals third basemen who won the Gold Glove award. First, some basic numbers courtesy of Baseball Reference:

Player

Innings

Chances

PO

Assists

E

DP

FP

RF/9

Kouzmanoff

1186.7

311

94

214

3

24

.990

2.34

Zimmerman

1337.7

459

117

325

17

28

.963

2.97

Two things stand out. Kouzmanoff made a lot less errors than Zimmerman, but Zimmerman made a lot more plays. The difference in errors is important for one thing that is often overlooked: Kouzmanoff gave up very few extra bases on wild throws, while Zimmerman presumably did. However, as far as turning batted balls into outs, despite the error difference, it appears that Zimmerman is far superior, as evidenced by his 2.97 Range Factor (assists + put outs/innings *9) against Kouz’s 2.34.

Context counts

The difficult part of fielding analysis, however, is context. That is, determining truly how many opportunities each player had to make outs, because they were playing at different parks, behind different pitchers, and against different hitters. They certainly did not face the same exact set of batted balls, in such a different environment, so looking at their fielding stats, without adjustments, may serve us no good.

So, what do we want to do? We want to determine how many opportunities each player had. The Hardball Times’ RZR can help us here. Baseball Info Solutions watches video of all batted balls and determines whether or not they were in the third base zone. All other grounders are classified as out-of-zone. Here are the RZR numbers:

Player

BIZ

Plays

RZR

OOZ

Kouzmanoff

223

168

.753

34

Zimmerman

282

205

.727

101

BIZ—Balls in zone
Plays – Plays made on BIZ
RZR – plays/BIZ
OOZ – plays made out of zone

What we see here is that, yes, Zimmerman did have more in-zone opportunities, in part because he played more innings, and probably in part because of some differences in context (such as the Nationals and Padres respective pitching staff tendencies). We also see that Kouzmanoff made a higher percentage of plays on in-zone chances, in large part because he was so good at not making errors.

However, Zimmerman has a huge lead in out-of-zone plays, 101 to 34. Now, he also had more BIZ, so we’d assume he had more OOZ opportunities, but that doesn’t come close to making up the difference.

The more precise, the better

One of the problems with an RZR-type system is that it throws all in-zone balls into one bucket, and all out-of-zone balls into another. What if, by chance, Zimmerman had a lot of balls hit right at him, and a lot hit just outside of his zone? That would probably skew our analysis. So, we can look at something like UZR, which is more precise, cutting the third basemen’s area of responsibility into many small slices, rather than one big one (it also has adjustments for park and pitching staff and so on).

Simply put, it’s better. Last year, Zimmerman’s UZR per 150 games was 20 runs above average, a very high number. Kouzmanoff was at +10.7 RAA per 150. Obviously, a good rating, but Zimmerman clearly has the edge.

More data, please (redux)

One thing about advanced fielding stats is that we really shouldn’t look at just one year. There’s too much variability, year-to-year, to put too much reliance into a season of data. Looking at more than one year gives us a better idea about a player’s true fielding ability. Kouzmanoff, in his 418 career games at third, is about +3 RAA (per 150). Zimmerman’s RAA/150, in his 590 game career, sits at +12. Again, a relatively clear advantage to Zimm.

Scouting and the wisdom of the crowds

In fielding analysis, scouting is undoubtedly pretty valuable. I don’t have scouting reports available on either player, but just about everything I’ve ever read about Zimmerman’s fielding, from non-stathead types, has said that he’s great with the glove. Kouzmanoff, on the other hand, is more of a mixed bag, rarely ever receiving too much praise for his glove-work.

Tom Tango runs his Fans’ Scouting Report every year, in which fans rate the fielding prowess of the players they watch everyday. This year Ryan Zimmerman ranked 6th among third basemen in average rating, while Kouzmanoff came in at 13. In 2008, Zimmerman was 4th, Kouzmanoff 29th.

The Fielding Bible asks a panel of ten experts, including the likes of Bill James, James Dewan, and the BIS video scouts, to rate fielders at each position every year. Zimmerman came in first place here, while Kouz came in 11th overall. Last year: Zimmerman 9th, Kouzmanoff 12th.

A little common sense

After going through all of this, I don’t see any reason to suspect that Kouzmanoff was truly a better fielder than Zimmerman in 2009. Zimmerman’s advanced numbers were clearly superior, he has a better track record defensively, and he’s better from a scout’s perspective. Kouzmanoff had a fine year with the glove, and he’s come a long way in the fielding department in the last few years, but that doesn’t make him better than Zimmerman. A low error total doesn’t either, because we’re not looking for fielders who don’t make errors. We’re looking for fielders who make outs.

There is always that chance that he was better, though. We can never really tell for sure. The numbers could have been off five or ten runs for each player, in either direction. But, considering what we do know about both of these guys, I think it is pretty clear that Zimmerman deserved the award over Kouzmanoff. If anything, it is far from an outrageous decision.

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6 responses to this post.

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chris Bauer and Myron Logan, The Sacrifice Bunt. The Sacrifice Bunt said: Myron has a helpful and insightful article on Kouz's defense and defensive stats in general. Check it out: http://bit.ly/4nsd58 […]

The zone in UZR is just an area in which all 3B got to the ball 50% of the time. It says nothing about positioning or how far the player actually went to get to the ball. Until we have that, and its coming, then the fielding metrics in regards to range are extremely flawed.

No one sees Kouzmanoff play on a national basis since most of his games start AFTER SportsCenter on the east coast starts. No Web Gems when you are playing after they have already shown the web gems for the day.

Kouzmanoff made plays and he got outs and he turned a greater percentage of DP and he gave up extra bases on errors by a factor of 600%.

He may not be better than Zimmerman in range, but he is better in turning the plays he gets to by a large margin.

Web, I think you are confusing UZR with something else, perhaps RZR. Here’s a good read on UZR from its creator: http://tinyurl.com/cawep

There’s a part two, that talks about the adjustments, if you’re interested.

I understand that Kouzmanoff may be better at turning balls he gets to into outs, I just don’t think that’s what we’re trying to measure. Kouz made all the plays he got to (well, except three), but he surely didn’t make “all the plays,” because his range is limited.

If I’m a pitcher, I want my fielder to make outs. If he makes a lot more plays than another guy, and I have to live with a few more errors, I’ll do that.

Also, who is to say that Zimmerman’s errrors were on “easy” plays. Perhaps many of them were on difficult plays that Kouzmanoff would not have even fielded.

Good points as usual, MB. I actually saw someone write that Kouzmanoff deserved the Gold Glove because it’s a “fielding” award, not a “range” award, as if a defender’s value is primarily in catching the balls that he doesn’t need to move for.

Runners undoubtedly advanced on some of ZImmerman’s errors, although we can’t know for sure without looking at the play by play data. Not every throwing error by a 3b results in even one extra base by the runners. There’s no practical difference between Zimmerman making an error on a rocket down the line and Kouzmanoff watching that same hit go past him. Things like DPs are overly dependent on the pitching staff (putting runners on) and the 2b/1b. Even Kouzmanoff’s error total is heavily influenced by the presence of Adrian Gonzalez. Nick Johnson’s a fine glove man, but for 60+ games Zimmerman was throwing to Adam Dunn, who as a defender makes a fine oak tree.

The most advanced metrics, scout’s opinions, and the judgment of fans through TangoTiger’s project, which is hardly limited to East Coasters, all agree that Kouz didn’t deserve the award.